Climate News

Shifting from pasture to sugarcane cools Brazilian cerrado

Posted Sun, 17 Apr 2011 17:01:00 GMT by Martin Leggett

Sugarcane in Brazil's cerrado can have a cooling double whammy. It helps to power private transport, with cane ethanol that has fewer greenhouse gas emissions - and now it has been shown to potentially help cool the local climes too. A paper to be published in Nature Climate Change, has measured the effects of switching from other crops and cattle to sugarcane - and the dense thickets of cane are better at reflecting sunlight, and cooling through water loss.

Damaged coastal wetlands means bad news for our climate

Posted Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:39:01 GMT by Ruth Hendry

A new World Bank report has found that drainage and degradation of coastal wetlands leads to decreased carbon sequestration and increased amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If coastal wetlands are drained, for example to convert the land for agricultural use, they emit large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere

Research casts light on planet's future

Posted Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:03:00 GMT by John Dean

The study of fossilised mollusks could give scientists an invaluable insight into the way the world will respond to climate change. Researchers at Californian university UCLA say that examining the fossils from 3.5 million years ago has allowed them to build a picture of how the world is reacting to current levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a key contributor to global climate change.

West Antarctica gets warmed from tropics via 'Rossby waves'

Posted Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:11:02 GMT by Martin Leggett

A long train of low-and-high pressure areas, known as Rossby waves, are helping to channel increasing warmth in the equatorial Pacific over to the Antarctic - according to research in Nature Geoscience. That is also producing an increase in warming in Western Antarctica, which contains vast amounts of water locked in its thick ice-caps. Melting here could pump 15 feet of sea-level rise out across the globe.

Cities ill-prepared for climate change dangers

Posted Sat, 09 Apr 2011 15:19:01 GMT by Martin Leggett

Despite containing half the world's population, and being particularly vulnerable to climate change, most cities are failing to prepare themselves for the anticipated risks. That's the conclusion of a report in this month's Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. The author concludes that a short-term pressures are swamping the long-term planning needed to safeguard cities from events such as tidal-flood surges or heat-waves.

The world is getting windier

Posted Fri, 08 Apr 2011 15:27:00 GMT by Laura Brown

Australian researchers discover the world is getting windier and waves higher. Using five techniques to independently measure the figures, they found the speeds of the fastest winds have increased by around half a percent. The height of the biggest waves has risen by between a quarter and half a percent.

Leaf rot slows after droughts, hindering plant growth

Posted Wed, 06 Apr 2011 12:25:00 GMT by Martin Leggett

With hotter, driers summers, tree leaves don't only shrivel - they produce more tannins, which changes the way that they rot over the autumn. New research published in New Phytologist suggests this subdues plant growth in the drought's aftermath, so extending the knock-back from dry-period. It also causes subtle inter-plays in the carbon cycle, which have yet to be teased apart.

Arctic ozone hole moving south

Posted Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:37:00 GMT by Louise Murray

Unusual atmospheric conditions during the last Arctic winter have opened a massive hole in the ozone layer and that hole is extending into the more densely populated latitudes of northern Europe. Ozone depleted air masses are moving south from the Arctic and have reached Finland. They are expected to move as far east as the Russian-Chinese border and perhaps as far south as the Mediterranean.

Patagonia glaciers now melting ten times faster

Posted Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:50:00 GMT by Martin Leggett

A new study, published in the current issue of Nature Geoscience, has been able to measure the rate of Patagonia glacier loss over the last several hundred years. The team of scientists, from Britain and Sweden, has found that current melting rates are ten times faster than newly measured historical rates. With temperatures in the region rising fast, in line with global warming climate model projections, it seems the death of Patagonia's glaciers has man's hand behind it.

Erratic boulders indicate past antarctic ice sheet behaviour

Posted Sun, 03 Apr 2011 13:11:00 GMT by Tamara Croes

Scientists from Leeds and Aberystwyth University recently discovered that rocks displaced by the Antarctic Ice Sheet are found on James Ross Island, indicating that the sheet must have expanded this far earlier.

Slow-onset climate change could have 'potentially catastrophic' long-term impact on food production in the developed world

Posted Fri, 01 Apr 2011 15:31:00 GMT by Benjamin Kerry

The FAO has warned of the ''potentially catastrophic'' future impact on food production in the developing world by 'slow-onset' climate change. But doour governments presently take too much of a short-term approach to such changes? Andhow can we prepare for them to make developing world food production more resilient whilst managing the trade-offs?

Label carbon content says new study

Posted Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:31:00 GMT by Colin Ricketts

Carbon labelling will help consumers more accurately reflect their green intention says new research and producers will cut energy use and boost their environmental credentials too. Thomas Dietz, a sociology professor from Michigan State University, publishes his research in the new edition of Nature Climate Change and says carbon labelling will help reduce carbon emissions.

Jet contrails major contributor to aviation's effect on climate

Posted Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:01:01 GMT by Louise Murray

Cirrus clouds generated from the contrails of jets may be the cause of more atmospheric warming today than all the CO2 emitted by the aviation industry since the beginning of flight. Aviation is responsible for about 5% of man-made climate change effects, and that proportion could triple by 2050 according to some projections. Least understood is the role of aircraft exhausts in forming clouds.

Melting icebergs linked to carbon dioxide absorption

Posted Sun, 27 Mar 2011 16:29:00 GMT by Lucy Brake

Scientists have discovered that the movement and melting of icebergs plays an important role in distributing phytoplankton and consequently absorbing and removing carbon dioxide from the oceans. The new findings have major implications for global climate research and management.

Cut CO2 and the rains will flow

Posted Sat, 26 Mar 2011 18:39:00 GMT by Martin Leggett

Decreasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere causes more rain to be wrung from the clouds, according to research published in Geophysical Research Letters. That change in rainfall can go both ways, with decreasing precipitation as CO2 levels rise - and it happens faster than the overall global change in temperature.

The canary is tweeting - Arctic winter ice ties lowest level ever

Posted Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:06:00 GMT by Martin Leggett

March's Arctic winter-ice peak has just been called by the NSDIC, and it's low. This year's level is tied with the lowest ever recorded sea-ice extent - also seen this decade in 2006. The Arctic is probably seeing the fastest rates of change due to global warming, marking it out as an early warning of the dangers faced. Will anyone listen before this canary keels over?

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How can you describe the threats existing to species, both large and small? Using the highly-threatened primates, we can perhaps see how they have contrived to exist until the current time. Then we can better understand just how we can prevent factors simply wiping them from the face of the earth, often through ignorance, lack of care, prejudice and of course the universal profit motive. Conservation begins in our minds, but demands much more than that.

What does that blue butterfly do when you are not watching. We still have to discover exactly how the Eurasian large blue exploits Myrmica ants, but many of its relatives are either cuckoos (eg. (Phengaris alcon), or outright predators like the AustralasianLiphyra brassolis larvae ,eating the whole brood of the green ants they live with. How did such diverse habits evolve? Well, start reading here.

For several years, excitement has been building over the Atlantic presence of Manta birostris and Manta cf birostris/ this is the classification system trying to tell us of a potential new species that is related to genus Manta. Little progress has been made on this W. Atlantic species of oceanic manta, but it cant be long before we can confirm new knowledge of parenting and juvenile growth in at least the main species, which seems to live alongside the potential new manta.

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The future is certainly renewable, but are we too late to prevent future centuries problems of global warming- and the rest! Here are some current US solutions to waste and warming for you to enjoy---there are some ads in this piece but weve allowed them for one blog only.

When dolphins are 'rescued' in various countries, the car given seems to be ill-considered. We are simply looking at the success rate which is reported to be low, in most places. They could even end up in commercial aquarium shows, but they certainly rarely make it back to the sea.